Still Alive
by KiranDrawss
Summary: Rick is forced to relive his most painful memories, at the expense of his friends and family's lives. / Rick v. C-148
1. Still Alive

AN:

I deliberately tried to be more depressing in this than I was in 'I Don't Care'.

Honestly I poured my heart and soul into this too, haha. I didn't like how sloppy and rushed 'Drunk' was. Hopefully this is decent? I took my time with it, tried to word things nicely... I dunno.

\+ the Warden is now one of my favorite characters, I wanna draw her so bad.

Anyway! /s is a sign for sarcasm, I'm sorry for the awful gore (I don't write it very often, I had no idea what to write, lmao. Feedback would help out a lot), and the flask headcanon is from this lovely bit of fiction here: s/11700311/1/His-Flask-His-Friend

Thanks for reading, please give me feedback on how to improve.

* * *

"G-get the fuck off me." Rick sputtered, though apathetic to his decent into the maximum security prison, he was now being escorted out for an appointment with the Warden. He wasn't sure why, they took all his gadgets and illegal substances, his blueprints and plans and documents, his infinite amount of alcohol and even his flask, as well as did several DNA tests that had wiped him clean of anything they wanted from him. What now? He couldn't help being grumpy ether, this was the first time in a long time he'd waken up completely and utterly sober, and any small annoyances were proving to be a challenge to deal with without voicing his anger loudly and aggressively.

Fortunately for him, the guard complied to simply escorting him to the room, without the need of touch, though he still kept a watchful eye on him. Tough luck, buddy. Rick Sanchez wasn't planning on going anywhere, anytime soon. He had nothing to go back to.

When he arrived to the appointment, the same two guards that escorted him to the room now escorted him inside the office of the Warden, the other two guarding the door. The office was organized neatly, not a thing out of place, and sat in the comfortable office chair at a desk that looked as if it was never used, it was so neat. The warden was a yellow-colored, athletically fit hyper-bitch with a stern, gruff voice and an agenda to push. She and her minions of the government had been chasing after him and his comrades for years, but was never able to track him down, until now.

"Hello, Rick." She greeted smugly, sickeningly stupid smile on her face, clearly proud of what she caught, like a stupid fat cat that was oh-so-proud of hunting down a mouse, blood staining its paws, looking for attention. It was irritating, and made Rick roll his eyes.

"T'skann." He clicked, alien for the equivalent of 'bitch'.

"Mm. You haven't changed." She said, wrinkling her nose at the offensive word in her language. "No matter. You're on death row, you'll have your punishment dealt soon enough." She gloated, shuffling some papers around in her hands. She landed on a particular one and tapped a sharp claw onto it. "Rick Sanchez, Earth dimension C-148. Sentenced to scanning, then death."

Rick's eyes genuinely widened at that, Scanning, of course! They wanted his memories. Bird person, Squanchy... They were going to use him to catch them, and all they had to do was scan his memories. He grit his teeth aggressively, almost leaping forward and attempting to grab her, but the guards had him caught before that could happen.

"You BITCH! You hurt them, and I swear, I-i-i'll kill you, do you understand!? I'll KILL you!"

The Warden was apathetic, unworried. She didn't even move when he nearly attacked her.

"You won't be doing much in that cell of yours." She mused, just loving this. He kind of suspected she had a thing for him, or maybe just murder. "Now, let us proceed." She announced, batting her many eye lashes, before standing upright and walking toward a door on the right side of the office, leading to a much brighter room full of heavy machinery and tools. Before Rick could say much more, he was dragged into the lab-looking space by the guards before being strapped down to a table, his head under a machine that was similar to a CAT scanner in helmet form, but could do more than just that, and he knew that better than anyone, even the doctor who could control it.

"You're not getting anything from me, you hear me? NOTHING!" He shouted, really not up to reliving the majority of his life, pleasant as that sounded. (/s)

"Shh, shh, shh, shh..." The Warden hushed, like he was a small baby, even with a malicious grin on her face. "Save your energy, you'll need it for afterwards." She pinched his cheek, and he spat on her, and that did it. "Start it up." She told the doctor sternly, multiple eyes still locked with Rick's, wanting to savor the moment he gave up control, he suspected.

The machine whirred and beeped, and Rick fought the pull of the mechanical arms on his temples, but unfortunately, he couldn't win. He was sucked in to reliving all of his memories, everything. The lonely nights of reading as a child, his first drink, The first time he crashed his car, his marriage and its inevitable failure, his travels and the battles against the intergalactic empire, when he first found out he was a grandfather, everything. It was tiring to re-live his years, seeing his friends and comrades die once more was reopening painful memories for him, and to top it all off, he was _sober_. In just a little over three real-life hours, He was nearly finished, before it fell upon his last memory, the memory of what happened before he came to this retched place. Though he attempted to repress it, the force of the machine ripped it away from him in a swift motion, forcing him to relive the last several hours of his freedom over again.

* * *

He'd let his guard down, admittedly. He should've known, you turn your back, you attempt to get off-edge, you end up regretting it.

It was a simple adventure, he just needed some off-planet parts and ingredients, but he didn't consider the consequences of going to the particular planet he did. The shop-owner recognized him, and immediately sold him out to the Galactic Federation for a high price. He and Morty were running from several amounts of government agents, successfully portal-ing away at the last second, but he hadn't suspected them to follow his co-ordinates. The safe, familiar space of the garage only lasted a moment before another portal opened, out of it coming an alien with a highly lethal weapon, screeching in alien for them not to move. Morty of course, not understanding what was going on, turned around, and the next thing Rick knew, Morty was hit with a blast of something. Without hesitation, Rick shot the alien, successfully making it explode all over the garage. He looked down at Morty with apathy, though it initially surprised him to see the damage the gun had done. Morty looked near mutilation, a few bones broken and skin blistered, cracked and bleeding horribly as he tried to voice his discomfort, it coming out in choking noises, which Rick shushed, he couldn't bear to hear those right now, much as he looked the opposite.

"Don't worry about it, Morty, I got it. You'll be fine." He bent down to pick up his bleeding mess of a Grandson when more aliens came through, all having to be fought off by him. There were so many, and they all came so fast, Rick neglected to notice the pain Morty was still in. He was choking on his blood.

When they finally ceased to come, he picked up Morty swiftly, and with no time for anesthetics, he set to work immediately, trying to repair his most trusted family member before the inevitable.

"M-M-morty, I need you to listen to me, you need to stay awake and try not to move, okay? I can't fix you up if you're flailing around like a maniac." He picked up one of Morty's arms, pausing to hesitate and warn the younger. "This might hurt, like, a fuckton. Sorry." He quipped, before re-setting the bone in his forearm in one quick motion.

What was left of Morty's eyes bugged out and the choking grew louder as he stiffened and curled inward from the pain. He was bleeding out. Rick needed an actual hospital, but he wouldn't be safe there. He had to try his best here, even though it hurt him emotionally every time Morty twitched and gagged and coughed. He set to work as fast as he could, resetting another bone before trying to stitch up the gashes that Morty was bleeding heavily from, all with gargling protests of pain from Morty. In the middle of a stitching, more officers showed up and made themselves known with the pile of their dead partners and co-workers. Rick no longer cared that he was found out, he just wanted Morty to stop bleeding to death all over his workbench.

His efforts proved fruitless in the end, however. Even after treating Morty's outside wounds, Rick needed to scramble to every hiding place he had for the proper equipment to check in with the rest of him. One machine told Rick he was bleeding internally, another that his heart was slowing, and through short, painful-looking breaths, Morty was still living, even with one eye fucked up and bandaged while the other glassy and glazed over as if he were already dead. It scared him, truthfully.

"Morty? Morty!" He waved a hand In front of his Grandson's face, but the boy didn't show any sign he heard him. At that moment, more officers came through the portal, and Rick let out a groan of annoyance. This time, Rick could just barely hold them off. More and more were going to come until they ripped him away from this boy, and he knew that well.

"Morty!" He shouted, before finally getting death-incarnate's attention.

"R r ri ck.." He choked out, flecks of blood flying from his mouth and onto the many bandages surrounding him. "I- i.. do n..t w w-ant to d-d-d.."

"Shut up Morty!" Rick exclaimed, frustration taking over. "I-I-I'm not gonna sit-sit around here until you die, alright? That's your fucking job, Morty!" He quickly fiddled with a machine that would hopefully get Morty's heart pumping faster. "Grandkids are supposed to be l-little pieces of shit that mooch off of you until you fucking croak, Morty! Y-y-you're not supposed to die, not now!" He grit his teeth as he tried desperately to screw a bolt into the machine without the aid of a table. Even if it was hopeless, he could still try. As if on cue, however, Morty started twitching sporadically, as if in a seizure, and making more coughing/choking noises that created more blood than anything, and without the heart machine working, Rick couldn't track his heartbeat.

Frantic, Rick attempted turning it on to program it to focus on Morty, but the machine only started up shakily before sputtering and breaking down again. Rick pulled his hair in anger. This was entirely his fault. If he had just said 'fuck my freedom' instead of being selfish as all fuck he wouldn't be in this situation, and Morty wouldn't be a dead man. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Rick the fucking twat fucked up once again, not only failing himself, but Morty too. They were both dead men at this point.

As Morty's twitching began to still, Rick decided then and there that fuck all that. Before too much longer, he had submitted Morty to an alien hospital, where hopefully he'd be okay, but even as a last resort he was too late.

Five minutes after he submitted Morty to the hospital, a nurse told him that Morty had lost too much blood and didn't make it. Rick may or may not have shouted at her, angrier than he'd probably ever been in his life, or maybe that was a stupid emotional outburst that never happened. It was all for nothing... and not only that, They found him at the hospital like he predicted. With no protest, he submitted to the Galactic Federation, all hope lost.

What made everything even worse was what he dared to think as soon as Morty got hurt, anytime he did, including the last floundering attempt he had at saving his grandson's life.

 _Oh well, if he dies, at least I'm still alive._

Remembering the very thought now, had him sick to his stomach.

* * *

When the machine he was hooked up to had collected the final memory of Rick's, He shuttered in his seat, right hand twitching, itching desperately to claw at his jumper in an attempt to find his trusty flask, though restrained. There was nothing there, however. Nothing to stop it, nothing to numb the pain. For once in his life, Rick was forced to be sober, without any aid to stem the endless flow of depression that washed over him. He felt vulnerable, like he could cry at any moment, but he bared the brunt of it for the amount of guards surrounding him, as well as the Warden. He was trembling, admittedly, though he attempted to hide it best he could. And with one final smirk, the Warden pulled out his flask from the inside pocket of her own neatly-pressed corporate blazer.

"Want this?" she teased, fingers and claws on one hand pawing the marks he'd etched into the metal himself. Many, Including one that was currently covered by her thumb. _That_ mark. A small line of silver, next to several others, a silent and somber reminder that his friends, his comrades were gone... but the little line, he was more than a comrade, more than a friend. He was family, incredibly close family; short as the line itself, another reminder of how young he was, what he had to offer. His Grandson.

He looked away, more annoyed than he'd ever been in his life. People had fought, and people had died, all for his stupid, selfish carelessness. For a moment, he was just glad he was going to be dead tomorrow... and maybe, just maybe, a single tear fell.

They had won.

They had broken him.


	2. The Ending

If it gives you solace, In my version of the end he simply gave up and waited, waited for the inevitability of his death sentence to come to fruition the next day. For his last request, a bottle of anything so he wouldn't feel the pain as they forced the life from him, and in the last whisper of his final traces of life, he was finally at peace with his mind.

Much to my surprise - SillyCritter made a second part to this, a happier ending. If you're interested, its at s/11772455/1/In-His-Name

Thank you so much for your support and attention! I've never had so much praise for my writing and I'm SO glad people like it!

 **EDIT:** I've scratched up a fanon string of dimensions in my spare time and I'll be using it as a point of reference for C-148's dimmensions and the like. Look out for it on my Deviantart in the future! (RAYDquit)


End file.
